ABOUT THE SUITED MONK: HOW AND WHY IT WAS CREATED
The Philosopher Behind The Suited Monk:
My name is Raf Adams. I’m a practical philosopher, and for the past 18 years I’ve been working on one question: why do so many successful people still feel empty?
I grew up in Belgium, spent 12 years working in China, and built a career that looked right from the outside. But I carried a quiet but persistent feeling that something was misaligned. Not broken. Just… off.
The financial crisis of 2008 hit while I was living in Shenzhen, China. That disruption became the catalyst for everything that followed. I realised I was not living a life true to myself and made a decision that changed the direction of my life: to follow my Monk, wherever it would take me.
What I discovered on that journey became the Suited Monk Philosophy. A practical framework for integrated living, built on two core tools: the Life Journey Model and the Gap Model. Over 18 years it has grown into a global movement, reaching leaders in Fortune 500 companies across Asia, Europe, and Australia, published in three languages, and now taught by facilitators worldwide through corporate workshops and Project Peace.
The movement is built on a simple but radical idea: you don’t have to choose between success and inner peace. You can close the Gap between your Suit and your Monk, and live an integrated life.
That’s what I work on every day. With leaders, organisations, and individuals who have built success on the outside but sense there’s a deeper, more aligned life available to them.
The Story Behind the Philosophy:
From 12 to 27 years old, I suffered with feelings of insecurity, frustration and unhappiness. My profession in Transportation and Logistics began to lose meaning and purpose both professionally and in my personal life. During the financial crisis, living in Hong Kong in 2008 I was affected by this crisis.
That was the trigger where I experienced an awakening, I was aware of the peace that was born in me; freeing myself from my Suit, from the emotional burden that this profession carried me; but I experienced a very big fear, which today I can say was the uncertainty of not knowing which way to go in my career and life.
I was 27 years old, and I felt now is the time of doing something different in my life. I began listening to my intuition, but being unaware that I was being guided by my heart.
Gradually I found my new purpose and a new mission in my work and in my life. To help others resolve negative emotions and anxiety and find happiness, love, and purpose and align it with your career. The Suited Monk was born.
That is why I dedicate myself to serving leaders in large companies who carry a lot of responsibility, who fight for business success, accompanying them in the process of aligning their Suit success with their interior, with their Monk happiness. Sometimes it is not necessary to lose, to change radically, or sometimes simply to align and feel what we must do to achieve real success by closing the Gap, to be happy internally and successful externally.
For this reason, I developed The Life Journey Model ® and the Gap Model to help others achieve what I had learned: to live a life, which integrates the heart with the multiple facets of everyday life.
This model appears in my book The Suited Monk adapted for the first time in paper format to share this powerful message and help others so that they can discover their true selves and benefit from their gifts and talents. They are clear and practical instructions to follow to apply in today’s life and enjoy the immediate results. I have a team of coaches where we teach Suited Monk workshops, retreats and courses for facilitators.
Our Team Members
TEAM fACILITATORS
SUPPORTING COMPANIES IN LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT SINCE 2009
The Suited Monk Teadership Training
Our Monk is the centre of your life purpose and awareness. Our Monk is the source of your passion with the capacity for insight, creativity and perception. Growth, purpose and fulfillment comes from the flow of life, passion and talent to emerge from your Monk.
The Suited Monk books, personal development and leadership programmes will help you to develop mastery over the pressures that are faced by your Suit every day. We define mastery as the ability to close the Gap between our Suit that presents us to the external world and our Monk who provides passion, wisdom and guidance – our true Self. Mastery is listening and nurturing the Monk within.
We specialize in executive coaching, consulting for corporate renewal, leadership training and helping leaders to renew themselves and their teams in order to operate with greater alignment, purpose, effectiveness and profitability. The services provided to clients include executive coaching and workshops designed to develop authentic leadership capabilities.
Corporate Renewal Seminars and workshops are also offered to clients to cover topics such as: personal and team effectiveness (including stress management); vision and values engagement, authentic and self-aware leadership.
Raf has served many companies and individuals in our personal careers and through consultancy, management education and coaching. We are committed to the values and practice of responsible leadership.
The Suited Monk Philosophy is built on one belief: that success and inner peace are not opposites. They are the natural result of closing the Gap between your Suit and your Monk.
If that resonates, the next step is yours.
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